The present invention relates to a fine structure formation apparatus to form a fine structure to be pressed onto a transferred object, by using a stamper forming fine recess/projections having a unit of nanometer or micrometer.
Recently, semiconductor integrated circuits have been developed their fining and integration. For a purpose of realizing such a fining, photolithography devices have been made highly accurate as a pattern transfer technique. However, the wavelength used in the fabrication method has been close to the wavelength of light source used for an exposure, therefore, the lithography technique has also been close to the limit of usage. To this end, for a purpose of advancing further the fining and higher accuracy, electron beam lithography devices have been used as a charged corpuscular particle beam device, instead of the lithography technique.
The pattern formation by using the electron beam is performed by drawing mask patterns as different from a batch exposure by using a light source of i rays, excimer lasers, etc. Therefore, the more the number of patterns to be drawn, the more the exposure (lithography) time is required. In consequence, the above-mentioned method has a drawback such that it takes a lot of time to form the patterns. As the integration degree of the circuit is dramatically increased to 256 megabyte, 1 gigabyte and 4 gigabyte, the time of forming the patterns is also increased, and there is concerned that the throughput is considerably deteriorated. Consequently, for a purpose of achieving a high speed electron beam lithography device, a batch graphic projection method has been developed, that is, various shapes of masks are combined and the electron beam is irradiated collectively on a combination of the masks thereby to form a complex shaped electron beam. In consequence, although a pattern fining has been continued, it is compulsive that the electron beam lithography device becomes large and it is required to provide a mechanism for controlling mask positions in high accuracy. Thus, there is a drawback that the device cost is increased. In contrast, JP-A-2003-291211, JP-A-2006-326948, JP-A-2008-155413 and JP-A-2009-158731 disclose a technique to perform the fine pattern formation in low cost and high throughput. According to this technique, a mold having a recess/projection pattern identical to a pattern to be formed on a transferred object is pressed onto a resist film layer formed on the surface of the transferred object or on the transferred object itself to thereby transfer the predetermined pattern.
The JP-A-2003-291211 discloses that an endless-belt shaped stamper is pressed onto a resist layer formed on a substrate surface by a heater built-in roller to continuously transfer the pattern.
The JP-A-2006-326948 discloses a technique in which multiple-stage heating rollers and heating layers are used to enable high speed transfer.
The JP-A-2008-155413 and JP-A-2009-158731 also disclose a technique to inhibit an occurrence of transfer defective such as wrinkle-like dents occurred in the JP-A-2003-291211 and JP-A-2006-326948.